If you're looking for a career in this field, you're probably a real "head in the clouds" type. That is to say, while the other kindergartners were playing "Bonk" (the game where they take turns bonking each other on the head with sticks), you were standing at the top of the slide staring up in wonder at the sun. Not directly of course, though. That would be very painful.

A person has to study hard for many years to earn the right to call themselves an astrophysicist. All astrophysicists are college graduates, and most take their education even further than that. 

Once a prospective astrophysicist completes graduate school and earns a doctorate, they will be an expert with valuable expertise and a vast knowledge base. Just how valuable, you ask? The average astrophysicist earns over $100,000 annually (source). 

 

"That tiny light...is a whole galaxy?" (Source)

Real live astrophysicists look a little further than the clouds, or even the sun—they look into the cosmos and use subtle clues from faint, distant lights to glean information about celestial objects and phenomena.

Using data collected through telescope or spectrograph searches, astrophysicists spend their days studying the cosmos, analyzing and theorizing about what the telescopes or spectrographs are actually seeing. These studies are expensive, so astrophysicists also spend time writing grant proposals and raising funds for their research (source). Competition for grant money is fierce and getting fiercer, because the return on investment for astrophysics research comes with a long delay, if ever.

 

As long as there are balloons involved, it doesn't matter who you're bossing around. (Source)

Most astrophysicists cut their teeth in graduate school and a Ph.D. program, then settle in for a lucrative career climbing the ladder of academia. For the less school-inclined, it's possible to get an industry job at a private company with only a master's or bachelor's degree (source). 

In either case, as you gain experience and clout, you could begin leading research teams and bossing people around. Most of them will be students, but it still counts.

Between research, writing grants, attending meetings and conferences, and sometimes teaching, an astrophysicist has a very busy average day (source). They also save time to read recent papers by colleagues and keep up on the latest developments in the field. That material, combined with first-hand research, is the fuel that astrophysicists use to dream up new ideas for studies and experiments. 

People who succeed in this field are highly-motivated, super-creative, math-and-science-savvy types with serious writing and social skills. If you're willing to put in the time and effort (lots and lots of effort), you could become one of these enormously talented astro-geniuses walking amongst us laymen.

The topics that an astrophysicist may specialize in span far and wide, including all sorts of outlandish events from black holes and dark matter to stellar evolution. Which is not to mention purely theoretical endeavors, such as string theory. And that's just scratching the surface. There are many more subtopics in astrophysics that we can hardly spell, much less explain.

Think we're kidding? The astrophysics program at the University of Chicago includes classes in "History of the Telescope," sure, but also in "Quantum Mechanics of the Interstellar Medium," "Topics in Astrophysical Fluid Dynamics," and "The Perturbed Universe." 

Do those sound even slightly comprehensible? We didn't think so. But by the time you're through with your degree, you'll be able to explain just what's perturbing the universe—and more.

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